The police – and their boss, minister Fikile Mbalula – have been left red-faced and caught in a PR nightmare now that the arrest of 10 people, touted as a breakthough in the investigation of a Cape Town massacre, has turned out to be a monumental blunder…

Mbalula arrived at the scene of the arrests to make his own road-side interrogations. He later posted pictures of the men on Twitter and boasted about the “midnight criminal space shake up” to his one million Twitter followers.

But The Times has established – through interviews with six of the “suspects”, all of whom have been released without charge – that they are all members of a family transporting a coffin containing a dead relative to his funeral in the Eastern Cape.

They say they were made to lie on the ground for three hours while the police waited for Mbalula to arrive.

Oh, they were just transporting a dead relative to his funeral and you made them wait hours like common criminals.

Here’s where it gets even worse – this dickhead knew the men were innocent, but tweeted about it anyway:

The men were detained at Cape Town Central police station and freed on Sunday night.

Despite this – and despite the earlier police statement announcing that the arrest charges were being withdrawn on Saturday – Mbalula tweeted a picture of the men to his army of social-media followers on Monday.

Mhaga acknowledged that the tweet was published after the statement was withdrawn by provincial police…

Classic Trump – bugger the truth.

And here’s the cherry on top of the Trump cake – Mbalula’s spokesman said the minister tweeted the picture in reaction to a Zapiro cartoon making fun of him.

This cartoon:

Oh, his fragile little ego.

What next – scream FAKE NEWS every time someone writes something unfavourable?

The men in the picture tweeted out by our shameless minister now say their lives and livelihoods are in danger:

“I don’t know what is going to happen at work,” said Luvo Nzulu, 22, a Cape Town security guard. “We don’t feel safe in our community. We are worried that people have already labelled us tsotsis and might target us. Those who know us will understand our situation but those who live in Marikana might kill us.”

The men claim that they were beaten by the police and labelled “killers”.

They showed bruises on their legs and necks which they claimed were inflicted by the police. They are raising money for a lawyer.

According to Constitutional law expert Shadrack Gutto they have a pretty decent case, and could file charges against Mbalula and sue for damages.

I would say take him for all he is worth, but South African taxpayers would probably end up footing that bill anyway.

By the way, in order to deflect attention Fikile is currently engaged in a Twitter battle with Mmusi Maimane:

And this from earlier this morning too:

“Too much on the ground” – I would say the men wrongly arrested and detained for three hours so you could get your Twitter photo are the ones who have a right to make that complaint.